Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons^™

Evaluating The Alignment Of Academic Research And Industry Leadership Best Practices, Thomas A. Maier

Thomas A. Maier

This hospitality leadership research analysis was conducted in order to assess the alignment of academic research and industry leadership best practices. Gaps were identified and implications for professional practice discussed.

Sustainability Leader Competencies: A Grounded Theory Study, Pamela G. Schwalb

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

The purpose of this critical qualitative study was to develop a theory of the competencies of a sustainability leader, grounded in research. A sustainability leader is generally described as an individual who creates profit for his/her stakeholders, while protecting the environment and improving the lives of those for whom he/she impacts as a result of his/her leadership. Nearly 60 individuals familiar with sustainability were asked to characterize an effective leader of a sustainability initiative or a sustainability organization.

The study revealed there is more than one way to be a sustainability leader—different paths can result in decisions and actions that …

Service Undone: A Grounded Theory Of Strategically Constructed Silos And Their Impact On Customer-Company Interactions From The Perspective Of Retail Employees, Kelley O'Reilly

Kelley A. O'Reilly

This work elaborates the impacts of strategically constructed silos that are not byproducts of flagging cross-departmental cooperation or the cumulative effect of decades of decentralized command and control. Rather, these silos are strategically intended structures within organizations. Most significantly, the substantive theory of strategically constructed silos and their impact on customer service contributes to the field by illustrating the presence and consequence of silos occurring in suboptimal conditions. The existence of silos has implications that extend far beyond the retail area.

A key take-away from this research is that contrary to how most customer service processes are designed, not all …

Locating Sociological Concepts In Business Games, Dylan Kissane, Helen Roux-Fontaine

Dylan Kissane

"This article describes one strategy for demonstrating the value of sociological concepts to business students by adopting a cross-discipline approach to a business game at a French-American business school. This strategy proved effective in allowing a social science professor to demonstrate the practical implications of two concepts – gender and race – to undergraduate students while simultaneously allowing an international management professor to demonstrate how cross-cultural teams should be managed in order to work effectively. This article first explains the Ecotonos business game; secondly, it explains the crucial debriefing process for the business game and demonstrates how sociological concepts can …

Ownership Unbundling In European Energy Market & Legal Problems Under Eu Law, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

In this paper we will examine the issue of ownership unbundling and forced divestiture remedies imposed in a series of recent competition law cases of the energy market - examined in other papers - in relation to the possible existence of a series of legal obstacles. These energy market decisions belong to a group of antitrust cases in which a structural divestiture remedy has been imposed under the provisions of Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003. This divestiture refers to transmission networks and to generation capacity and is meant to lead to severe structural changes, which are compatible with the findings …

Book Review: Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure, Aaron W. Hughey

Counseling & Student Affairs Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Ehr On Professional Competence In Hrm: Implications For The Development Of Hr Professionals, Bradford S. Bell, Sae-Won Lee, Sarah K. Yeung

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Information technology has been cited as a critical driver of HR’s transition from a focus on administrative tasks to a focus on serving as a strategic business partner. This strategic role not only adds a valuable dimension to the HR function but also changes the competencies that define the success of HR professionals. Interviews were conducted with HR representatives from 19 firms to examine the linkage between electronic human resources (eHR) and the reshaping of professional competence in HRM. Based on the findings, we draw implications for the development of HR competencies and identify learning strategies that HR professionals …

Slippage In The System: The Effects Of Errors In Transactive Memory Behavior On Team Performance, Matthew Pearsall, Aleksander Ellis, Bradford Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Although researchers have consistently shown that the implicit coordination provided by transactive memory positively affects team performance, the benefits of transactive memory systems depend heavily on team members’ ability to accurately identify the expertise of their teammates and communicate expertise-specific information with one another. This introduces the opportunity for errors to enter the system, as the expertise of individual team members may be misunderstood or misrepresented, leading to the reliance on information from the wrong source or the loss of information through incorrect assignment. As Hollingshead notes, “information may be transferred or explicitly delegated to the ‘wrong’ individual in …

Work Teams, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Teams serve as the basic building blocks of modern organizations and represent a critical means by which work is accomplished in today's world. Therefore, significant research during the past few decades has been focused on understanding work team effectiveness. This entry looks at the history of this research and what it says about team types, team composition, team development, team processes, and team effectiveness.

The Use Of Social Networks In Top Management - The Case In Chile, Alfredo Enrione

Alfredo Enrione

• Survey taken in July 2011. Sample was 2,311 top managers from a universe of 17,052: Partners, Board Members, CEO and other officers in the executive suite

• Social networks are no longer exclusive to younger generations of students and lower rank employees. 77,2% of the sample used social networks

• Age was a good predictive variable: while 94% of those managers below 35 years old used social networks only 32% of those above 70 years old used them

• CEOs are at a disadvantage, board members and lower ranking officers use social networks more intensively than CEOs

• Women …

Strategic Leadership And Innovation In High Technology Firms, Terri Scandura

Terri A. Scandura

Did you ever wonder what the organizations that produce some of the high tech gadgets we marvel at such as the IPhone and the Blu-ray player are like? How do their leaders create and maintain a spirit of innovation that produces these hit products? High technology firms face unique challenges because of the fast paced and ever-changing landscape of their industry. Intellectual capital and innovation have become the key sources of competitive advantage in a wide range of industries and many have argued that the key to the future competitiveness of organizations in the U.S and abroad is the ability …

Leadership & Organizational Change, Terri A. Scandura Phd, Monica Sharif

Terri A. Scandura

In recent years, change has occurred within almost all organizations. Downsizing, relocations, restructuring, technological changes, mergers, process-oriented changes and people-oriented changes are happening on a daily basis. Therefore it is necessary to study the influence organizational change has on important organizational variables. We conducted a study examining reactions to different types of organizational change. We specifically looked at the extent to which employees trust their organization during different types of organizational change.

Looks Aren't Everything: Aren't Managers Concerned With Actually Being Fair, Terri A. Scandura Phd, Cecily D. Cooper

Terri A. Scandura

The justice literature has unequivocally noted how important it is employees feel they are treated fairly. Accordingly, managers often find themselves in predicaments of injustice which they must resolve. Research on social accounts describes strategies managers can use to make themselves “seem fair,” thus, alleviating their predicament. But in taking an impression management perspective of justice, this literature fails to acknowledge that many managers actually want to “be fair.” Based on the latter assumption, we propose an alternative framework for understanding how managers will address justice-related predicaments.

Validity Of Scandura And Ragins' (1993) Multidimensional Mentoring Measure: An Evaluation And Refinement, Stephanie L. Castro, Terri A. Scandura Phd, Ethlyn A. Williams

Terri A. Scandura

The establishment of a mentoring relationship can be important to an individual‘s career for multiple reasons. However, in order to study this construct, we must be able to accurately measure it. In this paper, three separate studies were conducted to examine and refine Scandura and Ragins‘ (1993) multidimensional mentoring measure. In Study 1, an empirical assessment of the content validity of the measure was conducted. The convergent and discriminant validity, reliability, and item-total correlations were then examined in Study 2, and the measure was reduced to nine items. The convergent and discriminant validity, reliability, and item-total correlations of this reduced …

An Investigation Of Leader-Member Exchange, Organizational Justice And Performance, Terri A. Scandura Phd, Manuel J. Tejeda

Terri A. Scandura

Recently, the concept of organizational justice has been employed to re-examine the Leader-member exchange (LMX) literature. LMX, and three forms of justice (distributive, procedural and interactional) examined using a sample of N = 275 leader-member dyads. Results indicated procedural justice moderates the relationship between LMX and performance.

Team Learning, Development, And Adaptation, Steve W. J. Kozlowski, Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Our purpose is to explore conceptually these themes centered on team learning, development, and adaptation. We note at the onset that this chapter is not a comprehensive review of the literature. Indeed, solid conceptual and empirical work on these themes are sparse relative to the vast amount of work on team effectiveness more generally, and therefore a thematic set of topics that are ripe for conceptual development and integration. We draw on an ongoing stream of theory development and research in these areas to integrate and sculpt a distinct perspective on team learning, development, and adaptation.

Toward A Theory Of Learner-Centered Training Design: An Integrative Framework Of Active Learning, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] The goal of this chapter, therefore, is to develop an integrative conceptual framework of active learning, and we do this by focusing on three primary issues. First, we define the active learning approach and contrast it to more traditional, passive instructional approaches. We argue that the active learning approach can be distinguished from not only more passive approaches to instruction but also other forms of experiential learning based on its use of formal training components to systematically influence trainees' cognitive, motivational, and emotion self-regulatory processes. Second, we examine how specific training components can be used to influence each of …

Llcs And Corporations: A Fork In The Road In Delaware?, Joshua P. Fershee

Joshua P Fershee

As Vice Chancellor Laster explained in CML V, LLC v. Bax, 6 A.3d 238 (Del. Ch. Nov. 3, 2010): '[T]here is nothing absurd about different legal principles applying to corporations and LLCs.'" This short paper argues that courts should respect the LLC as a business form distinct from corporations and that Delaware courts have taken the first step toward doing just that.

Where legislatures have decided that distinctly corporate concepts should apply to LLCs—such as allowing piercing the veil or derivative lawsuits—those wishes (obviously) should be honored by the courts. But where state LLC laws are silent, courts should carefully …

Advances In Technology-Based Training, Bradford Bell, Steve Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] There is a growing utilization of technology-based training in the workplace. The 2005 State of the Industry Report published by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) revealed that in the average organization, technology-based training accounted for 28.1 percent of all training hours in 2004 (Sugrue and Rivera, 2005). The report also revealed that the utilization of technology-based training has almost doubled since 2002 and is projected to further increase to 32.5 percent in 2005. In this chapter, we examine this trend and explore recent advances in technology-based training. We begin by discussing the environmental factors pushing companies …

Disentangling Achievement Orientation And Goal Setting: Effects On Self-Regulatory Processes, Steve Kozlowski, Bradford Bell

Bradford S Bell

The Heckhausen and Kuhl (1985) goal typology provided the conceptual foundation for this research, which examined the independent and integrated effects of achievement orientation and goal setting approaches on trainees’ self-regulatory activity. Using a complex computer-based simulation, the authors examined the effects of three training design factors cutting across these two theoretical domains – goal frame, goal content, and goal proximity – on the nature, focus, and quality of the self-regulatory activities of 524 trainees. Results revealed that all three factors had a significant influence on self-regulation, with goal content exhibiting the greatest influence. In line with expectations, congruent learning …

Leadership & Organizational Change, Terri A. Scandura Phd, Monica Sharif

Management Faculty Articles and Papers

In recent years, change has occurred within almost all organizations. Downsizing, relocations, restructuring, technological changes, mergers, process-oriented changes and people-oriented changes are happening on a daily basis. Therefore it is necessary to study the influence organizational change has on important organizational variables. We conducted a study examining reactions to different types of organizational change. We specifically looked at the extent to which employees trust their organization during different types of organizational change.

Building The Infrastructure: The Effects Of Role Identification Behaviors On Team Cognition Development And Performance, Matthew J. Pearsall, Aleksander P. J. Ellis, Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

The primary purpose of this study was to extend theory and research regarding the emergence of mental models and transactive memory in teams. Utilizing Kozlowski et al.’s (1999) model of team compilation, we examine the effect of role identification behaviors and argue that such behaviors represent the initial building blocks of team cognition during the role compilation phase of team development. We then hypothesized that team mental models and transactive memory would convey the effects of these behaviors onto team performance in the team compilation phase of development. Results from 60 teams working on a command and control simulation supported …

Developing Adaptability: A Theory For The Design Of Integrated-Embedded Training Systems, Steve W. J. Kozlowski, Rebecca J. Toney, Morell E. Mullins, Daniel A. Weissbein, Kenneth G. Brown, Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] This convergence of forces – environmental, technological, and economic – is driving a reconceptualization of the nature of training systems. Training is shifting from an inefficient, time consuming, and expensive enterprise to one that can be delivered efficiently, as needed, and just-in-time. It is shifting from an off-site single episode to a systematic series of learning experiences that are integrated in the workplace and embedded in work technology. It is shifting from a primary emphasis on retention and reproduction to a broader emphasis that also includes the development of adaptive knowledge and skills (Kozlowski, 1998). Training will not be …

Conducting Industrial And Organizational Psychological Research: Institutional Review Of Research In Work Organizations, Daniel R. Ilgen, Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

Although informed consent is a primary mechanism for insuring the ethical treatment of human participants in research, both federal guidelines and APA ethical standards recognize that exceptions to it are reasonable under certain conditions. But agreement about what constitutes reasonable exceptions to informed consent sometimes is lacking. The research presented the same protocols to samples of respondents drawn from four populations –Institutional Reviewer Board (IRBs) members, managers, employees, and university faculty who were not members of IRBs. Differences in perceptions of IRB members from the other samples with respect to the risks of the protocols without informed consent and on …

Self-Assessments Of Knowledge: Where Do We Go From Here?, Bradford Bell, Jessica Federman

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] In this paper, we argue that there remain several unanswered questions surrounding self-assessments of knowledge that must be addressed before we can reach a more definitive conclusion on the viability of these measures. The answers to these questions may provide further evidence that self-assessments should not be used as an indicator of learning or they may serve to qualify the conditions under which self-assessments can be used with reasonable confidence. In either case, addressing these issues is critical if work in this area is to influence how researchers and practitioners evaluate trainees’ learning.

The Effects Of Technical Difficulties On Learning And Attrition During Online Training, Traci Sitzmann, Katherine Ely, Bradford S. Bell, Kristina N. Bauer

Bradford S Bell

Although online instruction has many potential benefits, technical difficulties are one drawback to the increased use of this medium. A repeated measures design was used to examine the effect that technical difficulties have on learning and attrition from voluntary online training. Adult learners (N = 530) were recruited online and volunteered to participate in a four-hour training program on using computer spreadsheets. Technical difficulties were inserted in some of the training modules in the form of error messages. Using multilevel modeling, the results indicated that the presence of these technical difficulties impaired learning, such that test scores were lower in …

A Comparison Of The Effects Of Positive And Negative Information On Job Seekers’ Organizational Attraction And Attribute Recall, Adam M. Kanar, Christopher J. Collins, Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

To date there have been no direct studies of how strong negative information from sources outside of organizations’ direct control impacts job seekers’ organizational attraction. This study compared models for positive and negative information against a neutral condition using a longitudinal experimental study with college-level job seekers (n = 175). Consistent with the accessibility-diagnosticity perspective, the results indicated that negative information had a greater impact than positive information on job seekers’ organizational attraction and recall, and this effect persisted one week after exposure. The results did not indicate that the influence of information sources and topics that fit together was …

Active Learning: Effects Of Core Training Design Elements On Self-Regulatory Processes, Learning, And Adaptability, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

This research describes a comprehensive examination of the cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes underlying active learning approaches, their effects on learning and transfer, and the core training design elements (exploration, training frame, emotion-control) and individual differences (cognitive ability, trait goal orientation, trait anxiety) that shape these processes. Participants (N = 350) were trained to operate a complex computer-based simulation. Exploratory learning and error-encouragement framing had a positive effect on adaptive transfer performance and interacted with cognitive ability and dispositional goal orientation to influence trainees’ metacognition and state goal orientation. Trainees who received the emotion-control strategy had lower levels of state …

Consequences Of Organizational Justice Expectations In A Selection System, Bradford S. Bell, Darin Wiechmann, Ann Marie Ryan

Bradford S Bell

This study examined several consequences of applicants’ expectations of organizational justice at multiple stages in a selection process. We assessed the justice expectations of 1,832 job applicants prior to their participation in a testing process and examined how these expectations influenced their pretest attitudes and intentions as well as their perceptions of the testing process. Results revealed that applicants with higher expectations of justice reported higher levels of pretest motivation and more positive job acceptance and recommendation intentions. Justice expectations were also positively related to applicants’ perceptions of justice in the testing process. Results also provided some evidence that justice …

Current Issues And Future Directions In Simulation-Based Training In North America, Bradford Bell, Adam Kanar, Steve Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

A number of emerging challenges including globalization, economic pressures, and the changing nature of work have combined to create a business environment that demands innovative, flexible training solutions. Simulations are a promising tool for creating more realistic, experiential learning environments to meet these challenges. Unfortunately, the current literature on simulation-based training paints a mixed picture as to the effectiveness of simulations as training tools, with most of the previous research focusing on the specific technologies used in simulation design and little theory-based research focusing on the instructional capabilities or learning processes underlying these technologies. This article examines the promise and …